


Mistakes

by osunism



Series: The Warmth of Your Doorway [3]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen, Prequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-03
Updated: 2015-06-03
Packaged: 2018-04-02 16:28:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4066777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/osunism/pseuds/osunism
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Samson assumes a lot of things when he meets the Inquisitor. The tally counter starts when he underestimates her ability to be resourceful. A sort-of prequel to <i>Post Tenebras Lux</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mistakes

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even fucking know.

            He knew the Inquisitor was on his heels; he’d read the reports. He’d only seen her once since the Breach was opened, and that was when she’d taken a thrashing from the master at Haven. After, he’d never thought of her again. As far as he was concerned, she’d been killed and their plans continued apace. Samson could hear the sounds of a brutal battle taking place in the distance, and he couldn’t help but laugh that here, so close to their goal, the land was silent, void of conflict save for the cooling elven corpses at their feet. He was proud of his men; proud that they sought glory and a worthy end as much as he did. Perhaps it was because at the time of his expulsion he’d thought himself alone in his thinking.

            He’d had plenty of time to do naught else but think, truly.

            “General!” One of his men called in warning, and without having to turn around, he knew. The Inquisitor was made of sterner stuff, after all—well, he’d test her mettle. She was resourceful; he’d give her that. Samson turned around, giving her a smile that was half-sneer, half-cruel.

            “You’ve got a damn long reach.” Was all he said by way of greeting. In truth, it was aggravating how relentless she’d been. Chasing him down like a wolf on the hunt, just a breath away from closing her jaws in the killing stroke. She leveled a gaze at him, eyes glittering like preternatural steel in the sunlight. Her smirk was cocky, self-assured, and she flourished him a mocking salute in the style of the Orlesian bards. For some reason, that rankled him.

            “Ah, what can I say?” Her voice carried across the space between them easily in this tranquil sanctum, “I like to travel. Following _you_ has taken me to some rather interesting places.” She merited a terse smile for the comment, but Samson was not entirely amused.

            “You’re too late.” He told her, more of a bluff than anything, but her expression didn’t change but he did note the subtle shift of her weight, the placement of her hands, and belatedly, the telltale signs that he was facing down a mage.

            The Maker was not without a sense of ironic humor.

            Samson didn’t laugh outwardly, but he couldn’t help but be amused at this outlandish turn of events. His entire derailment from the Order had been spearheaded by his sympathy for mages. It began with the one—Maddox—and so many others he’d smuggled out of Kirkwall during those days where he had craved the sweet, calming notes of the blue more than anything. He’d never lost his sympathy, unlike Meredith, who let her fear and her newfound addiction to the red control her to the point of her own demise.

            And now here, in this place where elven eidolons sought to bar them from an ancient sanctum, he would have to face down a mage as his final obstacle. He didn’t explain what it would mean when he drank from the Well of Sorrows, because to him it wouldn’t matter. She would be dead, and he’d personally take her pretty head to Corypheus himself.

            The Inquisitor lifted her chin a little at the threat, and she reached into her pack, holding something up. It was clearly a rune-stone, but it was etched with something familiar to him. His eyes narrowed, and she spoke a single word.

            The armor that had protected him from so much, the armor that was as obdurate as the walls of Therinfal Redoubt, began to burn. Samson gritted his teeth against the pain, alarmed as he was, and dropped to a single knee as he heard the armor’s defenses give way with a bone-rattling shatter. He felt raw, like an exposed nerve, or an open wound, and he was angry. Perhaps that was his mistake; one in a long line of too many to number anywhere but on the soul.

            “Kill them all!” He barked, knowing what it would mean if they didn’t. He saw the Inquisitor unleash her staff; saw her shift from that cocky, self-assured woman to something else entirely. It was like a shift in the breeze, and he saw how she and her companions fought to dispatch his men.

            He would deal with her himself, then.

            The armor’s defenses may have been crippled, but he had more than enough power to deal with her. Perhaps that was his second mistake. The tally was growing. He took care of the elven mage, first. Then he turned his attentions to the other three women: the warrior, the archer, and the Inquisitor herself.

           The Inquisitor didn’t fight like any mage he’d ever met. Her footwork was too light, too clean, the lines of her body too lissome and fluid. He tried to recall where he’d seen that style before. She dodged and danced away from him, toward him, prodding for an opening, distracting him with spells that did nothing more than distract him from the threat that was the Reaver. Samson knew the Inquisitor was stalling, but the Reaver didn’t seem to care. She bound him up in her grappling chain, trying to hold him fast, but Samson freed himself with a snarl and shout, only to find an arrow whistling by his head, where it cut his brow with its precision. Blood stained his face, blurring his right eye’s vision.

         There was another silver-eyed bitch. Family, then. The Reaver, the archer, and the Inquisitor were all related. The arrow was a miss on purpose, but he realized that too late when the Inquisitor shirked her civility and took him clean across the jaw with her staff. She was wearing that damnable rock armor, which augmented her natural strength and turned it into something far beyond. Samson saw one of his teeth go flying as the world spiraled around him and he hit the ground hard, sending whole chunks of the earth beneath him to flying, putting a dent in the stones beneath him. He’d knocked out the other mage—the one they called Solas—but before he could get up, he found himself stilled by the blade-end of the Inquisitor’s staff.

       The blade wasn't sharp, but it was large enough that if she decided to end him, there wouldn't be much effort required on her end. He was almost reckless enough to demand she finish it. Corypheus would kill him for his failure, anyway, but he knew his pride would never allow him a coward's death. The blade was cold against the side of his neck; enough pressure would end his life. He glared up at her, a sneer on his lips, but more for himself than for her. She wasn’t smiling, but she didn’t seem angry either.

      “Now,” she said in a dangerous tone, “you’re going to tell me about this…Well of Sorrows, and why Corypheus wants it so badly.”

       Samson didn’t know—and who is truly given to know the future?—the long corridor of history that would stretch between them. In that moment, he was a defeated general, cut off from the remainder of his forces and at the mercy of the Inquisition. And she? She was the Inquisitor.

       She was just a mage.

      And perhaps, in thinking that, that had been his third mistake.


End file.
